Media metering entities desire knowledge on how users interact with media devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart televisions, etc. In particular, media monitoring companies want to monitor media when presented at the media devices to, among other things, monitor exposure to advertisements, determine advertisement effectiveness, determine user behavior, identify purchasing behavior associated with various demographics, etc. As used herein, the term “media” includes any type of content and/or advertisement delivered via any type of distribution medium. Thus, media includes television programming or advertisements, radio programming or advertisements, movies, web sites, streaming media, etc. Media metering entities monitor the distribution of media to audiences to provide reports about what media is distributed, how the media is consumed by audiences, demographic profiles of the audiences, etc. The reports may be utilized by media distributors, advertisers, etc. Typically, large geographic areas to be metered (e.g., an entire country, an entire continent, the entire world) are divided into regions. These regions are sometimes referred to as designated market area (DMA) regions.
Some media distributors provide multiple feeds that can be distributed to any media markets as desired. For example, a media distributor (e.g., a distributor of sporting events) may distribute one or more primary feeds (e.g., regional feeds, a generic feed that can be used to provide media during blackout periods (e.g., when a local sporting event is blacked out for a particular market), etc.) and one or more alternate feeds (e.g., feeds with sporadic programming based on a number of sporting events to be distributed). A multiple system operator (MSO), cable headend, or other media redistributor (also referred to as an “operator” herein) that include systems for receiving and distributing media to media presentation locations includes several integrated receiver decoders (IRDs) or other types of receivers that are each capable of receiving any of the above mentioned feeds (e.g., primary feeds and/or alternate feeds). Typically, the particular feed to be distributed by the MSO, cable head end, etc. is controlled by a control signal sent from the media distributor. In response to the control signal, the operator tunes, selects, or otherwise receives a feed directed by the control signal and distributes the feed to media presentation locations. Distributing the feed may include associating the feed with a channel, multiplexing the feed with other feeds/channels, and distributing the multiplexed feeds to media presentation locations via a cable distribution system, a satellite distribution system, etc. Alternatively, any other techniques or systems for distributing the feeds to media presentation locations may be utilized.
A source identifier (SID) may be associated with a particular distribution feed by encoding or otherwise associating the SID with the media. For example, the SID may be encoded in the audio stream of the feed. Accordingly, the media may be identified (e.g., by hardware and/or software of a media metering entity) after distribution. For example, a panelist metering device (e.g., a metering device that meters panelists, which are users registered on panels maintained by a media metering entity) at a media consumer's location may detect the SID encoded in the audio to credit the media and/or provider. Media crediting information may be used to generate ratings and reports about the media, distributor, distribution channel, etc.